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Thursday, April 4, 2013

Backroom deals in Portland more blatant than ever

Now the City Council members huddle up with Nike executives and sign nondisclosure agreements so that they don't have to tell the public what the meeting was about. There really ought to be a law against that. Of course, it would take an initiative petition drive to get such a law enacted.

Next thing you know, they'll be signing agreements and refusing to disclose them because they're supposedly copyrighted. And graft, legal or otherwise, can be a protected trade secret. It's government at its worst.

Comments (9)

Oh gosh, I sure hope this is not some licensing deal where we get the evil swooshie on every street sign, adding a swoosh tattoo to the reindeer, repainting all streetcars, weekly and making the cops provide a police escort as the team drives up weekly from Eugene to purchase their "herb".

I could see how the NDA would apply to unelected public employees in the state or city, although I don't like it, but how the hell does this not run afoul of Oregon's open meetings law? Is there a carve out for NDAs?

So let me try to put this in a nutshell...
Elected officials make secret deals with corporations and sign NDAs to keep them secret. After they've left office they get jobs with these corporations. Meanwhile, the state AG looks the other way and when they leave office they get a cushy job as a university president.

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